Amy
by Stephane Richer
Summary: Did you tattoo a lucky charm to keep you out of harm's way? Warding off all evil signs but never really kept you safe


Amy

Disclaimer: I don't own Green Day's "Amy" or Tite Kubo's _Bleach_.

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Dead Quincies go to Soul Society, just like any other human. At least, that's what his father told him. He'd anticipated the question before Ryuuken could ask it, which was one of the things he'd both loved and hated about the old man. That's why they'd been slaughtered in the war, they'd been taken in by mad Shinigami scientists and experimented on. Since they weren't looking for her, she'd probably be able to stay out of harm's way.

It was odd, worrying more about your wife after she was dead than when she was alive and in a coma. It was as if she'd died twice, once when she fell into it and once when her soul and body severed. She hadn't said goodbye this time, either, though.

They'd been together since childhood, constant companions. Though she was a servant she quickly became a friend and ally. She may have been less than pure-blooded, but his parents were the only ones who cared about that kind of thing. While it made him more powerful than she, it didn't stop her from working to the best of her ability, from striving to reach her ceiling. He has always admired that about her.

At the same time, how much had they truly known one another? Whenever they got too close, one of them would remember the bonds of their master-servant relationship, and that would be that. There was always that formality between them, but then, wasn't that part of who they were? They were too alike.

Neither of them had ever said, "I love you." It was substituted with "I need you," and "I can't stand to see you like this," and "I want you."

Sometimes, now, he wonders if it all really happened. He wakes up in an empty house and wonders if he's still sixteen and his parents are just away on business, but no, even then she'd be there. And he can feel the nothingness all around him, choking him.

He doesn't cry. He doesn't speak aloud. His father has taken the boy, has seen the pain carefully hidden inside Ryuuken's eyes. He resembles her more and more every day. Ryuuken sees the young Kurosaki girl in the supermarket often (only a few years younger than Uryuu, and shopping for the groceries alone! Does that Shinigami idiot really think this is a good idea?) and is taken aback by the way she, too, resembles her mother. Isshin may be impulsive and irresponsible, but he can deal with still seeing her face. Does that make him more of a man than Ryuuken? He sees her struggling to reach a can on a high shelf and gets it down for her.

He hopes the old man isn't teaching Uryuu Quincy techniques, though at the same time he's sure that's exactly what is happening. If he has no power, Bach can't take it away, can he? He also hopes Isshin isn't making that Urahara guy teach his children about their powers, although the one who looks like Masaki has no spiritual pressure.

He comes home from the grocery store, from work, from the bar, he has to eventually. Every night, the house is empty and lonely. There is no presence beside him, no warm arms. No one has made him tea. No one scolds him for smoking indoors. He turns on the radio, and it feels so removed. The DJ speaks, but not to him.

He wanted to shout, "Don't go!" but he knew it wouldn't help. He held her cold hand, in the stark room of the hospital. He owned a hospital, was a pure-blood Quincy, could not save his wife.

He could not save her. It was as if he was powerless, just a normal man with no spiritual powers to speak of. In a minute, he would give those up.

He needs to apologize. And he knows he must live out his days as a doctor in this small town. Even after he dies, will she have moved on? Even if she's survived, will she still want him? Will she have a new man in her life, one who can protect her?

He could not save Masaki, could not save his mother, and most of all could not save Katagiri. Perhaps he is a worthless man. His father has protected him, perhaps he can protect the boy, too.

For every life he has saved on the operating table there is a life he has ended, destroyed, stood helplessly by as he watched it end. Does it make no difference?

His father dies, killed by Shinigami. Uryuu comes back home, with nothing but hatred for his father. Hatred, Ryuuken thinks, that he deserves. Still, he cannot deny the pain he feels, a pain like the stabbing of an arrow into his soul, when Uryuu addresses him simply by his first name. What would she have done?

She never would have let it get this far. She would have kept him closer to them. Formal and well-mannered, but close nonetheless. They aren't a real family now; they're missing a vital link. The house feels even lonelier now. Perhaps she has been reincarnated already. Thinking that, perhaps, she is here on earth again, does not dull the pain.

She is not with him. She might be anywhere, Chile, Australia, Azerbaijan, Tokyo, down the block. But she is still not here, so it doesn't matter. He doesn't mean to be an angsty nihilist, but why not? There is no one to stop him, to tell him she does not want him to frown, that she hates the lines in his forehead, that he should take better care of himself. Does that make his life nihilistic in and of itself? It's empty. She once told him that he had to make meaning for himself, that she looked at her life and saw nothing important, and made him her purpose. He supposes that subconsciously he did the same with her, but he cannot remember when.


End file.
